Man kills NRI wife, burns body

In a fit of rage, a travel firm executive murdered his non-resident Indian wife in south Delhi and stuffed her body in a bag and set it on fire in Haryana last month, police said Saturday. He has been arrested.

Sumit Handa, 31, was arrested Friday for killing his wife of South African origin Naranjani Pillai, 27, on Oct 30. The two have a one-year-old child.

The victim was the daughter of Handa's former employer in South Africa.


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"The couple used to squabble a lot over several issues. On Oct 30, they again quaralled and Handa in a fit of rage stabbed his wife in their rented flat in Vishwakarma Colony, Pul Prahladpur," said a police officer.

He then stuffed the body in a bag, blood-stained clothes in another bag and took them to Rai in Haryana. There he poured petrol over the body and the bags and burnt them.

Handa tried to mislead police and registered a complaint Nov 2 that his wife had fled with someone and her gold jewellery, cash and clothes were missing from their home. He even sent e-mails on her account asking her to return.

Police received information that the murderer was Handa himself which led to his apprehension and interrogation.

"He disclosed that he murdered Naranjani by stabbing her with a knife and then strangulating her with a wire. He then took the body in a bag and destroyed it along with blood-stained clothes," added the official.

Handa waited for more than two hours at the spot where he burnt the body and left the place after collecting a part of the ashes.

He even changed the floor tiles of the bathroom where he had kept the dead body so that no blood stains could be found.